BTW, when we first found the CB, our human had a hard time with all the “mom” stuff, because she’s not our mother. It took quite a while before she’d refer to herself as “mom,” for the sake of (a) convenience and (b) participation. She wonders if, when humans refer to their pets as children and themselves as moms, that it doesn’t somehow devalue our worth as equal Beings. It sets up a parent/child relationship, one that implies some sort of superiority (on the part of the human). She doesn’t see it that way at all.

On the other hand, she IS our caretaker. We wonder if there’s a better (short) word for that, than “mom.”